Jarrett Allen, Georges Niang and Evan Mobley each scored 17 points and the Cleveland Cavaliers pulled away to clobber the visiting Charlotte Hornets 115-92 on Monday night.
It was a solid turnaround after the Cavaliers lost by 37 points Sunday night at Miami, their third consecutive defeat. Cleveland also had dropped its previous three home games.
The Cavaliers (44-28) shook off a sluggish start in the shooting department and ended up at 53.5 percent from the field for the game.
Darius Garland provided 15 points and 10 assists, Isaac Okoro chipped in 14 points, and Sam Merrill added 12 points on 4-for-8 3-point shooting. It marked the third game in a row that Cleveland didn’t have a player reach the 20-point mark.
Allen grabbed a game-high 13 rebounds.
Brandon Miller racked up 24 points for the Hornets (17-54), who were blown out by 41 two nights earlier at Atlanta. Miles Bridges had 13 points, Tre Mann and Grant Williams both had 12 points, and Nick Richards and Aleksej Pokusevski finished with 11 points each.
The Hornets finished winless on a four-game road stretch, leaving their overall losing streak at five games.
Cleveland produced nearly half of its 86 shots from beyond the 3-point arc, connecting on 17 of 41 attempts (41.5 percent).
Allen, who collected 13 rebounds, scored six points as the Cavaliers put together a 15-5 stretch to end the first half with a 51-37 lead. Allen ended up 7-for-9 from the field, while Mobley was at 8-for-12 to go with a career-high eight assists.
The Cavaliers were too much for Charlotte in the post, holding a 47-33 rebounding edge.
Bridges was the only player singled out by Hornets coach Steve Clifford as having an acceptable outing in the Atlanta game, but he shot 5-for-14 at Cleveland and never really got going despite logging a team-high 38 minutes.
The Hornets were within 73-66 going to the final minute of the third quarter before a three-point play from Mobley and a basket from Niang in the waning seconds of the quarter boosted the margin.
Poor shooting defined the first quarter, which ended in a 20-all deadlock. Both teams hit 37.5 percent from the floor. The Cavaliers outshot the Hornets 64.7 percent to 33.3 percent in the second period and took a 51-37 lead into halftime.
The teams will play a rematch on Wednesday in Charlotte.
–Field Level Media
